My friend Bess recently wrote a piece about hoarding, in which she advocated ruthless pruning of all one’s possessions…including books. She asked rhetorically if a person is really going to re-read all the books he or she has saved and suggested that, even if you want to revisit a book, you can always borrow it from the library.
“Rubbish!” say I.I’m no hoarder…except when it comes to books. If anything, I’ve often described myself as a “compulsive throw-er-out-er.”
But I do store books—by the case.
It about slew me, back in ’04, when I downsized from my nice, big house into this more affordable but pint-sized condo apartment, to have to give away five bookcases full of assorted tomes, hanging on to only four bookcases and their contents. (That total does not include books I myself have written, which I have mostly stored in a closet. Nor does it include the books stored inside my Kindle e-reader.)
First of all, I’m quite secure that, what with my eclectic tastes, many of the books I own are not to be found in any local library. Second, there is something very comforting in the knowledge that my living room holds a trove of reading matter that I enjoyed well enough to hold on to it against the day when life might slow down (though I most devoutly hope it does not!) enough for me to have oodles of free time (perish the thought!) to spend hours in leisurely reading.
I would much rather spend my time WRITING books (and articles and blog-posts and other scribblings) than reading them. But I enjoy reading too, almost every evening (times when we have company over excepted), and if I like a book (which I usually do—choosing my reading materials carefully, I seldom buy books that disappoint), I want to keep it close by as I would a good friend.
Because, after all, a good book IS a good friend. It is there for you when you aren’t feeling well and are curled under the covers, too low to accomplish anything meaningful in the way of work, housework, or other tasks. It is there for you when it is evening and you are tired, and you just want to relax. It is there to keep you company in the waiting room of your doctor’s or dentist’s office, allowing you to actually enjoy the downtime while you wait for the tardy professional. Books make excellent companions.
And revisiting a good book you first read years earlier is like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in years. There are details you have forgotten but are pleased to be reminded of. There is pleasure a-plenty.
So…sorry, Bess, but I respectfully disagree with your advice about not hoarding books. I don’t hoard anything else, but I do and will continue to hoard books. Proudly. Gladly. Unashamedly. Avariciously.
And I suggest, whoever’s reading this, that you do the same.